Chapter Thirteen
“Youthinkyou love me?” Celina queried, tamping down the feelings inside her.
“I love you,” Diego stated firmly.
She couldn’t have been more shocked. Diego loved her? Surely she couldn’t have gotten that right. She wanted to hear him say the words, and so she’d imagined them. “There’s a big difference between thinking and knowing.”
Diego shrugged, his dark gaze impenetrable, and refused to commit himself one way or the other. That was when her lodestone, self-preservation, kicked in. She had to cut off her feelings or put up with what came next. “What exactly are you saying?” she pressed.
“That’s obvious, isn’t it? I don’t want this to end here.”
“On the river bank.” She tried to make light of it.
There was curve on Diego’s lips she couldn’t interpret. It wasn’t a smile or a smirk. It was a look that suggested she should know what he meant. But she didn’t, and it was easier to doubt than to believe. The gulf between hope and reality was too big even for her strong will to bridge. Biting back the stab of disappointment, she smiled and reached for her clothes.
He sprang up too. Maybe he was relieved. His actions were smooth and unconcerned as he dressed, though he pulled a face briefly at the extent of the button damage. There was no sign of him feeling the same turmoil she did.
But then he turned, and, cupping her chin, he made her look at him. “I know that face,” he said.
She recoiled, remembering that the last time she’d heard those words, they had come from the mouth of a slaver. She tried to speak and couldn’t move her lips. Remembered fear had returned. She wasn’t a hero, as Diego had suggested. She hadn’t felt brave when she was dragged into the doctor’s surgery by the thug. She’d been petrified and helpless. She’d been overconfident in the planning stages of her mission and had forgotten to add simple human emotion into the mix. She knew now how debilitating that could be, and how it could stall a brain and reduce a young, fit body to a useless blob of Jell-O.
“Celina?” Diego asked with concern.
We’re wrong for each other, she thought with certainty as she stared into his eyes. Framed by blue sky and sunlight, Diego had never looked more impressive. He was the most handsome man imaginable. But he had a position to maintain. Hundreds of people worked for him across the world. He was in all the society magazines. They called him the world’s most eligible bachelor. What would he want with damaged goods like Celina? The Duke of Monte Caliente was the darling of society. How could she stand at his side? How could she ever explain to him what humiliation felt like, or that she never wanted to suffer it again? She should do what she’d always intended and make the break between them clean and fast.
“There’s something I have to confess,” she admitted.
“This is beginning to sound like your sign-off,” Diego commented. His tone was faintly amused as if he couldn’t imagine anything she had to say could shock him.
“Blood and Thunder changed my life,” she admitted.
He frowned. “And almost got you killed.”
“Ialmost got me killed,” she argued. “You saved me.”
“And you saved countless others,” he insisted. “But that’s not what this is about, is it, Celina?”
“I owe you so much.”
“Cut the bull,” he snapped. “Iowe you so much, but I don’t want your gratitude, and neither does the team.”
He was waiting for her to say something, but she couldn’t find the words to counter his argument. It was always the same when happiness was within touching distance. She had to frighten it away. It was how she’d always avoided disappointment in the past. “This was all part of my plan,” she said.
“What was?”
“This—you, me, all of it.”
“Well, of course you planned the mission,” he agreed. “It might have been reckless, but everyone knows you acted with the best of intentions. And as far as the tech side went, your planning was meticulous.”
He began to smile, and she guessed he was remembering the micro-transmitter and where she’d hidden it. She felt no pride in that. All she’d done was her job. “I planned to sleep with you,” she said bluntly. “I wanted to know what it would be like.”
Diego considered this. “I don’t see anything wrong with that. You didn’t expect to come back alive, and you wanted to experience some good sex first.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I seem to be,” he confirmed dryly.
“But I was cold-blooded about it.”
